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Who out there doesn’t love Yo La Tengo? (Okay, you in the corner, the dude with the Fatomas T-shirt, please let yourself out quietly.) In March the Hoboken heroes mounted a unique concert billed as Yo La Tengo Turned Itself Inside Out that featured additional instrumentation beyond the core three: two drummers, a guitarist, a four-person horn section, and Zeena Parkins on electric harp being processed through multiple effects boxes. The good folks at Big O Zine have now posted the show in its entirety online – via a hot-sounding audiende recording at Dime A Dozen, natch.

There are a lot of us here at BLURT who are big fans of Australian rock bands, and Midnight Oil is near the top of the list. So your ol’ Uncle was mighty chuffed when news arrived that Peter Garrett & Co. would be barnstorming across North America throughout May for their “Great Circle 2017 Tour.” Last week they performed in Chicago, and now an audience recording of the show has surfaced on Dime A Dozen, with Big O zine picking up the ball and posting the MP3s, along with downloadable artwork, at their site.

Worth noting: the Oils performed their fourth album, 1982’s 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 , in its entirety during the first set, then plenty more fan favorites and politically-charged hits. The full tracklisting is below.

A few nights after the May 5 release of his new album This Old Dog, Mac DeMarco commandeered an undisclosed location in Brooklyn for a live webcast showcasing mostly his new material. It’s now circulating on the web and of course the Big O zine in MP3 form, including downloadable artwork.

I know what you’re thinking: Uncle Blurt, you never gave us the slightest hint that you were down with Kendrick! Au contraire, frere. I’ve got all his records on vinyl, so there. And now I’ve got his entire Coachella set from this year burned to CDR, complete with downloadable artwork, thanks to the archivists at the Big O zine.

The show was ripped from an HD webcast, so the quality is sweet. Tracks from all his albums are spotlighted – check the tracklist, below. And let’s face it: being able to listen to Coachella shows without having to actually BE at that clusterfuck for rich people is second only to not having to be at the Fyre Festival.

You could say we love us some El-P and Killer Mike around the BLURT crib… even your aging ol’ uncle, who until a year ago still thought the term “rap” was what folks did back in the ’60s when they wanted to have a serious conversation. (I remember an Episcopal Church preacher who prided himself for his “rap sessions” with us teenagers… but I digress.) So Run the Jewels had an HDTV broadcast of their March 1 concert in New York last month, and it’s now up at the Big O zine for free download, complete with artwork.

The sound is pretty awesome, and guests who come out include Boots, Joi, Gangsta Boo, and Zach de la Rocha, so things get, uh, pretty lively, to say the least. They even close out with a wild cover of the Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind.” Here’s the full tracklisting:

It’s been nine years since the Patti Smith Group toured Australia, and even longer since I saw her, so to nab a very hot audience recording of Smith performing this past weekend in Melbourne is a treat indeed. Over at longtime Smith supporters the Big O zine, the Sunday evening show is now posted for free download, along with downloadable artwork.

It’s not only great sounding, it’s a raucous show as well; as Big O informs us, “The crowd sat for the first two songs, then during Birdland one enterprising young lady decided to make her way up to the front, which then led to a free for all abandoning of seats and everyone else rushing to the front and everyone in the stalls standing for the rest of the show.”

Added a reviewer at Australia’s The Age, “[Forty years after the release of Horses] and in the flesh, this holy figure spits, burps and whips her followers into a spiritual frenzy. Standing ovations were happening before the band played a note, and while the first couple of tracks built the mood – ‘Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine’ – ‘Birdland’ saw people get out of their seats and march down to the front and out in the aisles, dancing, clapping and reaching out for Smith to touch their hands like she was, well, the Pope.”

Here at the Blurt pirate ship (we’re moored just off the shore of Ireland, incidentally) we have a hard time reaching a consensus about Father John Misty; Joshua Tillman’s music is intermittently brilliant, occasionally self indulgent, and moderately interesting (if a bit ’70s soft-rock derivative). On my part, I’m on the fence – and I detest his latest bathtub fart, Pure Comedy, which came out last week via Sub Pop. (Nice colored vinyl for the 2LP set, though.)

But fans will dig this show posted for free MP3 download at the Big O zine recently.

Love me some Wilco – the band is arguably the best American combo going right now. So here’s a good ‘un for all my fellow Wilco fanatics – the Chicago bros on home turf (the Chicago Theater, natch), serving up a heaping helping of recent album Wilco Schmilco alongside a ton of fun fan faves. The ever-diligent archivists at Big O zine have rounded up MP3 downloads of the FM broadcast Chicago punters were privy to, and there’s some sweet downloadable artwork as well. Link is below, followed by the full tracklising.

It’s no secret we’re big Chuck Prophet fans around the old BLURT saloon here – his new album Bobby Fuller Died For Your Sins is one of his best recordings ever and yer ol’ Uncle has been on nonstop Spotify shuffle with it in the car since it was released last month. (Go HERE to read a review of his 2014 album Nightsurfer.) Prophet has hit the road behind it as well, and a couple of weeks ago he was in Vienna, where he positively smoked.

The good folks at the Big O zine have posted the set online as a free download, including downloadable artwork.

You can check out the full setlist, below. Note that there’s a hefty sampling of Prophet fan faves (say that phrase real fast 5 times) alongside most of the new album – and it’s an outstanding, audience-sourced recording as well.

By any standard it’s been a brutal week or so in the music world, losing first Leonard Cohen, then Leon Russell, Mose Allison, archivist/rocker Billy Miller of Norton Records and A-Bones fame, punk pioneer and journalist Don Waller, and now Sharon Jones of the mighty Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings. As we music fans typically do, we work our way through our grief by revisiting the music. So here we go…

Over at the ever-diligent site Big O, they’ve posted a number of terrific Cohen concerts for free download, complete with artwork, including this FM broadcast from ’76, which joins several others previously posted:

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